Special Education Needs

  LITERACY IDEAS FOR UNDERACHIEVING PUPILS

EARLY YEARS

• Make sure the child is engaging with literacy first by collecting pictures of things he is interested in. Arrange these pictures in a scrapbook using blends.
• Get children to take part in making games such as Bingo or snap again using pictures which illustrate blends.
• An assortment of words attached to lines of Velcro on card (I used the'animal' card from Early Learning which I laminated). The children select the words needed to copy a sentence (given on a separate sentence strip) and attach the words selected to a new Velcro strip stuck below the 'bank'of words. Once the sentence has been created, the children can then copy it and draw a picture to demonstrate comprehension.
• Encourage a child to tell stories, either by taping his work or having someone else scribe them and then later use them for reading material.
• Make some worksheets / cards with, for example, a picture of a cat and the words 'a green cat' (with the word green written in green) beside the picture. The children have to colour the pictures as indicated. (shouldn't go too wrong if the colour words are shown in the appropriately-coloured font). They could then copy the writing.
• If you have access to 'writing with symbols' (??does Clicker work in the same way??) you could make some simple 'cloze activities with the missing word replaced by the symbol. A separate 'cue card' could show the symbols with the appropriate missing word. The children refer to their 'cue card' to find the missing word and write it in the space. I usually base mine on the current Big Book story so you can add a simple instruction at the end such as 'draw what happened next'- keep vocabulary simple so it reinforces words that are (hopefully) vaguely familiar!
• Simple wordsearches with the target words written alongside.
• Use templates for them to cut out letter shapes (from wallpaper etc).which can be used to make words (e.g. their names) These look really good even if the cutting is wobbly.
• Sound-sorting e.g given them some small objects (eg fridge magnets, miniature toys) which begin with target sounds e.g 's' and 'b' (start withvery distinctly different sounds if you want them to be independent). They sort the objects according to initial (or final ) sound and draw the pictures as sets of things that begin with.' If their drawing is dodgy, they could do the sorting with objects and then cut / stick pictures into the appropriate sets or you could forget the objects if they like to fiddle too much and just use pictures (Writing with Symbols' is great for a huge stock of pictures). You could adapt this for a rhyming task. The Ginn 360 picture cards are useful for this type of activity. (Thanks to Clare North at SENCO forum)
• Give activities like writing letters on a huge sheet of colourful paper with colourful pens. Let them choose a letter from the middle of the table and write it on their white board.
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  Match objects to letters - go down to reception they will have a wealth of ideas. If they are up to cvc have cvc picture cards available that they can pick up and try to write the word. Have competitions to get them to do it who can write the most etc.
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  Silly sentences are a good one with rhyming words but not sure if they are up to it. e.g. Dan the man ran. Also sometimes you can give a book and get them to find key words and write them down. With young pupils you can get them to write rhyming strings on bright paper and string them together.

This website gives you access to a number of downloadable packages which allow you to create your own worksheets and puzzles by selecting the vocabulary you want to target.

Group Activities for the Literacy Hour

This document has been created by Clare North and is full of great ideas.

Ict and Literacy

Another great booklet full of ideas by Clare North

Literacy Puzzles - online

Some simple vocabulary activities for early literacy

Spelling Activities

Dicey Spellings: This is a fun activity designed by Sally Raymond.

Acknowledgements & Copyright